Jacopo de’ Barbari, a Wandering Court Artist in the North

Abstract

Panegyrics on Jacopo de’ Barbari by his northern contemporaries, including Albrecht Dürer, suggest the depth of his influence and his role as a cultural mediator—a disseminator of Italian Renaissance artistic ideas to the Holy Roman Empire and Burgundian Netherlands. Nonetheless, twentieth-century art historians have largely discounted his critical importance as mere local or personal favoritism. Such criticism dismisses encomiasts’ parallels between de’ Barbari and Xeuxis while accepting praise of Dürer, Lucas Cranach, and Jan Gossart as the Apelles of their time. While considering critical works on the cultural exchanges between Italy and the North, chapter 11 places de’ Barbari’s artistic career in the contexts of early modern mobility and the situation of Renaissance court artists. It examines his presence in various northern courts as a fulcrum for spreading Renaissance artistic ideals and illustrates his role in conveying the artistic motifs and ideals of the Italian Renaissance to the North.